The Metiss Group's Blog

We are naturally attracted to people who agree with us and confirm what we already believe. It makes us feel better and less stressed.  However, disagreement, not consensus, leads to better decisions. Unfortunately, few leaders are comfortable seeking out differing opinions.

People with different behavior styles approach problems and offer solutions from different perspectives.  Your forceful, aggressive team members will give strong, no-nonsense answers.  The fun loving, high energy team members will offer optimistic, conflict free approaches.  Easy going, steady team members like logical and empathetic solutions.  And the rigid, compliant types prefer analytical, data driven options.

First, take time to evaluate how your team typically solves problems and use some psychometric assessments for additional insight. When you understand everyone’s strengths and approaches, encourage the team to challenge you from those different perspectives.  Once given permission and inspiration to contribute using new solutions in this way, the team will naturally make better decisions.

Empower your team to challenge your positions by using their strengths, and you’ll experience more success.

It’s the New Year, so as Steven Covey recommends in his 2nd habit: Begin With The End In Mind.  What do you really want/need to accomplish this year?  What about your direct reports?  Is there a development goal they have that you can support?

Empower the success of direct reports by asking each what they really want to accomplish as a development goal this year.  Together, set a plan with clear expectations, set some milestones for discussions about resources, restrictions, obstacles, and progress toward the goal.

As a team, identify a goal or two that supports organizational goals and set similar plans.  Discuss exactly what success looks like, what resources the team will need, any restrictions, and set the first few milestones with clear level of authority.  By creating clarity around these borders and boundaries, you empower the direct reports to attain the goal without micromanaging how exactly they get there.  Keep adjusting the milestones and level of authority as needed, and you’ll all be energized by the success.

Empower the success of your direct reports by beginning with the end in mind and setting the borders and boundaries around identified goals.

Microsoft announced recently they are abandoning their controversial “stack ranking” system for evaluating employees.  For years, Microsoft managers have been required to grade employees against one another and rank them on a scale of one to five.  Under this approach, some employees must receive an unfavorable review based on how they compared to their peers, regardless of the quality of their work or their accomplishments.  This created great angst for both managers and employees and is the primary factor for Microsoft’s poor morale.

Jack Welch similarly mandated a 20-70-10 differentiation process at GE.  Each GE department head was required to identify 20% of their superstars, 70% producers, and the 10% low performers needing to be terminated.  Even in an organization as large as GE, this approach was rejected by both managers and employees.

There is nothing wrong with differentiating your team – your superstars should be treated differently than your questionable contributors – but forced ranking is not the best approach.  The best differentiation models identify specific rigid criteria required to be identified as a superstar, producer, or questionable.  It doesn’t matter what percent of your team are superstars as long as they achieve the established challenging success factors (both achievement metrics and cultural/behavioral performance).  Similarly, those team members failing to meet their success factors and falling into the questionable category should be working on an exit plan, regardless what percent of the team this represents.

Empower your leaders to differentiate based on predetermined success factors instead of a forced ranking, and you’ll have a successful team.

The most hated talent management process is the performance appraisal. It’s one of the few processes that both leaders and direct reports dread.  Unfortunately, most HR policies require this annual ritual that is cumbersome and expensive.  HR experts estimate that the cost of preparing a performance appraisal is about $2,500 per employee per year. This cost includes the time required for preparation, meeting, and recovery (yes, direct reports need time to recover from this traumatic experience).

With all the evidence showing the ineffectiveness of formal performance appraisals, we are flabbergasted HR influencers insist leaders continue to conduct formal appraisals.  We recommend informal quarterly performance reviews but realize most leaders are still required to prepare formal performance appraisals.

Here are some tips to make the performance appraisal process more effective:

• deliver a copy of the appraisal to the direct report before the meeting to give them a chance to digest the feedback (this reduces the uncertainty the direct report feels);
• have the direct report complete the performance appraisal form on themselves in advance to exchange when you provide the copy to them (this creates a sense of fairness);
• meet someplace other than the boss’ office (this reduces the status a boss holds);
• avoid meeting on a Friday (the extra time for boss and direct report to interact before the weekend allows for the relationship to be re-established);
• discuss compensation adjustments in a different meeting (this keeps the focus on performance).

Empower your leaders to conduct smarter performance appraisals, and you’ll experience more success.

Availability bias was pioneered by psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, who in 1973 developed a model to explain systematic bias in human decision-making. Kahneman subsequently won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work.  We all have availability bias and have to exert much cognitive discipline to avoid the pitfalls.

Availability bias is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to mind. When making a decision, recent related events and situations are easily remembered. As a result, we might judge that those events are more frequent and impactful than others. We give greater credence to this information and tend to overestimate the probability and likelihood of similar things happening in the future.

Availability bias is frequently demonstrated when preparing performance reviews.  Leaders tend to give greater weight to recent events when evaluating their direct reports.  This becomes more problematic the longer the time between performance reviews.  Most people can only recall details within the past 90 days.  To overcome this tendency, leaders must record the performance of their direct reports throughout the review period and prepare the review based on those records, not their memories.

Empower your leaders to prepare their performance reviews based on documentation accumulated all through the review period instead of what they remember, and they’ll have more successful feedback sessions.

Chunking is a term psychologists use to describe a technique individuals utilize to group responses when performing a memory task. When we take bits of information and group them into larger chunks, we are better able to remember the details.  Psychologists argue our short-term memory can handle anywhere from three to seven chunks.

What’s easier to remember: 2485222593 or 248-522-25-93?  “Jobdefinitionisimportantforsuccess” or “Job definition is important for success?”  This is why we chunk numbers and words.

When defining job functions, leaders easily identify dozens of activities and functions required in the job.  This extensive list usually becomes the basis for job descriptions.  Unfortunately, employees can rarely recall all the job activities for which they are responsible and end up not accomplishing everything.

The best way to structure job activities is to group them into three to five larger chunks called accountabilities.  The leader and direct report can then think of the job in these easy to remember chunks, thereby improving their performance.

When defining your direct report’s job functions, empower yourself to chunk the activities and you’ll experience more success.

In 1994, Stephen Covey, along with A. Roger and Rebecca Merrill, introduced the four-quadrant importance and urgency matrix in their book First Things First.  In the book, Covey describes a framework for differentiating tasks that have long-term benefits (important-not urgent) from daily, less important tasks (important-urgent). Without a concerted focus, the important-not urgent tasks are often neglected until they become urgent-important.

Regular (weekly or biweekly) one-on-one meetings between leaders and their direct reports fall into the important-not urgent category but are often forsaken by leaders because they are too busy dealing with the important-urgent.  It’s in the one-on-one meetings that important-not urgent topics are discussed and dealt with before they become urgent.

During our leadership training sessions we ask leaders to raise their hand if they’d like weekly one-on-one meetings with their boss (or would have liked them when they had a boss).  Nearly everyone in the room raises their hand (who wouldn’t want regular non-pressured meetings with their boss?).  We then ask the leaders to lower their hand if they conduct these meetings for their direct reports. Sadly, most leaders do not lower their hand.  Why is it that direct reports are willing to invest in the important-not urgent but bosses are not?

Empower your leaders to conduct regular one-on-one meetings with their direct reports, and you’ll experience less important-urgent issues and more success.

Most leaders are hard driving dominating problem solvers.  They see a problem, kick into “fix it” mode, and solve it.  That approach made them successful; but as their team grows, solving problems will ultimately restrict growth.

For an organization to grow it takes more than just the leader to be a good problem solver. Leaders must challenge their team to develop by empowering them to solve their own problems.  The best way for leaders to advance their direct reports is to ask questions, NOT give answers, and challenge them to solve the problem without the leader doing it for them.

This is much harder for leaders than it sounds.  It requires great restraint for the problem solving leader NOT to solve a problem.  Imagine in the heat of the moment a leader seeing what needs to be done, taking a deep breath, and asking what do you think we should do?  Why?  What else have you considered?  Though difficult, this is what direct reports need to succeed and for the organization to grow.

Empower yourself to ask question and NOT give answers, and you’ll experience more success.

Succession begins with documenting key aspects of HOW critical components of a position are done, but many leaders feel guilty asking a direct report to do this for fear it sounds like “I’m getting ready to fire you, so I need to know what you do and how you do it.

A direct report may jump to this conclusion, but it can be framed differently.  The truth is, not only does each job in your organization need critical functions well documented in case of emergency, but this must be done so your direct report can be prepared for growth and guilt free vacations.

Both the job they may someday leave must be documented so someone else can be cross-trained to perform the accountabilities well, and the job into which they may grow must be documented so they may be cross-trained and developed to be prepared for success.

Minimally, if key aspects are documented, the direct report can return from vacation prepared to keep the ball rolling, not having to dig through a back log.

Empower your direct reports to participate in succession by documenting critical components of a position so they can prepare to grow.

All businesses experience highs and lows.  Though uncomfortable it’s the difficult times that make organizations stronger.  Challenging business cycles force leaders to reevaluate their processes, people, and expenses. One common approach leaders take during these times is to cut or reduce wages. As one challenged leader said, “A 5% across the board cut is what we need to get through this.”

In the social sciences, unintended consequences are outcomes that are not the ones intended by a purposeful action.  Cutting everyone’s pay, including “A” players, often causes unintended consequences.  Payroll is often the easiest expense to cut and an simple target for cost cutting leaders.  Beware of the impact this has on superstars.  Generally superstars can easily leave and find another job.  The assets a leader needs to work through difficult situations may leave if they feel their compensation is not being handled fairly.

Empower yourself to consider all the consequences of cost cutting measures and you’ll successfully weather difficult times.